Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me on the line right now. We have indeed
got the candidate for the Greens and that is Blair McFarlane.
Good morning to you. Blair.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Morning Katie. How are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're really good now, Blair, We've got about eight minutes
and a series of questions. Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Let's do it all right, Blair? First off, why do
you think you're the best person to represent the seat
of Lingiari.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, if you think that Lingiari is having problems with
crime and youth, then I'm your man. Like, that's basically
that's my CV for the last forty years that I've
worked in those fields in Central Australia. So yeah, I
feel like I'm really well qualified to move in that
space if people think that's that's where the problem is.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So Blair, talk us through that. I mean, we know
that crime continues to be one of the biggest issues
across the Northern Territory. So if you are elected as
a federal member, how do you feel that the federal
government could support the Northern Territory government on this really
serious issue.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. I've given it a lot of thought, as you
can imagine, because I've worked at the coll face of
crime since nineteen eighty six when I first moved here,
and I've seen a whole lot of programs come and go,
and over time, I guess I'm like just like a
plumber who's been a plumber for forty years, you know,
you sort of like look at things and see things
in a way that you know apprentices can't. And so
(01:30):
when I look at what's driving crime in the Northern Territory,
I see very poor federal government policy over generations, creating
a situation where there's a high proportion of the population
who are living in extreme poverty with nothing to lose
(01:52):
and very little reason to respect the white legal system.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And so through your experience, what do you reckon we
need to do differently?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
This is where this is why I'm with the Greens,
because the Greens actually have some policies that address these issues.
And there are longer term ones like you know, developing
employment and all of that sort of stuff in remote
communities and addressing the very poor educational and health outcomes,
But at what you can do really soon, And this
(02:23):
is what I'm always interested in. And it's not like
it's great to have long term goals, but people want
to know what they're going to how they're going to
deal with it like now, and one of them there
are ways you can deal with it now, and one
of those is Greens policy to increase Center Link payments.
At the moment, center Link is basically under the poverty line,
and so anybody who's on Center Link is living in poverty,
(02:47):
and poverty is the greatest driver of crime that ever
there was. Somebody once said, the law and its fairness
prosecutes rich and poor alike for begging for bread and
sleeping under bridges.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Blair in terms of obviously, you know, for some that
are living below the poverty line. That is one thing
that the Greens are looking at doing and keen to
do when it comes to cost of living across the board.
I mean, even when you look at those who are
working and who are juggling mortgages, juggling rent all that
kind of thing, what do you think could be done
(03:22):
to lower the cost of living for those in your
electorate or in your potentially in your electorate if elected.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, there are again, there are some really this is
a serious problem that's been coming for a while. The
basis of the cost of living problem is energy. Energy
has the cost of energy for every everything has tripled
in the last five seven years. It's like gas has
gone up by three hundred percent. Like that is the
(03:50):
underlying driver. Like everything costs more money because everything's built
on energy. The shops are more expensive because they've got
to ship things there. You know, planes are more expensive
is they've got to pay more for airline fuel. You know,
driving around is more expensive. Everything, everything is more expensive
because of energy. And the Greens have some really good
(04:10):
long term energy plans to move off fossil fuels and
onto onto renewables, which are the cheapest form of energy.
All the research shows that since unfortunately we lost we
lost our solar edge and it went to China because
of very because of poor investment decisions made in Australia,
(04:34):
the price of solar panels and the price that that
sort of battery storage has been going down and down
and down. Now it is the cheapest form of energy
there is now. The fossil fuel companies are hanging on
to the subsidies, and they're hanging on hard because they
know at some point in the future, some very close
point in the future, nobody's going to want their stuff.
You know, it's it's a dye it's you know, it's
(04:54):
a dying it's a dying industry. But whilst whilst they're
there and whilst they have that enormous power, they're hanging
on as hard as they can. And that's what's pushing
up energy prices and so the cost of living. That's
two components to it. There's that and there's also housing.
And housing is the reason we've got housing problems is
because the government dropped the ball about twenty years ago.
(05:15):
And like I grew up in a Housing Commission house,
I grew up in social housing and Baptist in the
sixties and at that stage the government was pumping out houses.
There are building houses for people all over the place,
but they haven't built any in any numbers for so
long that the existing housing stock is getting more and
more people squashed into it and it's degrading and the
(05:38):
price is going up and up. So that's another component
of the cost of living is housing. The rent that
people pay. It's just it's absurdly high. And there are
a number of other strategies I can talk about, but
that's they're the two reasons, and they're the two ways
that Greens would address it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But infrastructure is something that our other candidate lisese but
just raised, you know, roads and connectivity when it comes
to some of our more remote areas. What do you
think needs to happen when it comes to infrastructure and
the seat of LINGIAI.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, Like the roads down here are complete disgrace. Like
a lot of you know, even now after the rain
that we've just recently had, there are a lot of
roads going out into the communities are impassible, and so
people get stuck in town and and they're sort of
you know, they're basically homeless. There's all these people who
are sort of stuck in town, are homeless and creating
(06:32):
a sort of real drag on their relations. How you
definitely need better roads, but also we need to address
the cost of flights. Like it seems to me that
somebody in Parliament who could negotiate without all of the
sort of baggage of the major parties in relation to
quantas could sort of like play that card. Well, you know,
(06:53):
we gave you millions and millions of dollars recently during
COVID for job Keeper, and and you just turned around
and sort of like gave that away, div it in
to your shareholders, like you know, you've got to come
to the party and provide subsidized, fair, subsidized flights all
over Australia. To give up on the commercial model where yeah,
(07:16):
we'll make these cheap here because because there's lots of
lots of people going back and supports booing Melbourne and Sydney.
But we'll make these ones up up through the center,
you know, we'll make them really expensive. And that's that's
an economic model. That's a business model, but it's not
a fair model. It should be the same all over Australia.
Flights should should be subsidized so that everybody pays a
(07:37):
fair amount for the access to that national service.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Clair, we've only got about forty seconds left and I
do want to ask you, how are you going to
ensure the voices of Territorians are heard if you are
elected and if you do become the Member for LINGII.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, this this is a unique opportunity to do it.
It's unique and two levels. One because we are looking
at a hung parliament and this is a time when
independence and minor parties like the Greens will have vastly
more leverage than you have when one party has all
the cards, which is what it's been for most of
most of the history of Australia. So this is definitely
a time when the voices of territorians could definitely be
(08:18):
heard as long as as long as it was you know,
a minor party or an independent and not so. Yep,
that's my time here, That.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Is your time. Hey, very quick one. Where are your
preferences going to go?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
If you decided no, the Greens decide that, I'm pretty
sure the coalition would be very close to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
All right. Well, Blair McFarland, good to speak with you
this morning. Really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, thanks, thank you, No worries.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Thanks
Joining me on the line right now. We have indeed
got the candidate for the Greens and that is Blair McFarlane.
Good morning to you. Blair.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Morning Katie. How are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're really good now, Blair, We've got about eight minutes
and a series of questions. Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Let's do it all right, Blair? First off, why do
you think you're the best person to represent the seat
of Lingiari.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, if you think that Lingiari is having problems with
crime and youth, then I'm your man. Like, that's basically
that's my CV for the last forty years that I've
worked in those fields in Central Australia. So yeah, I
feel like I'm really well qualified to move in that
space if people think that's that's where the problem is.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So Blair, talk us through that. I mean, we know
that crime continues to be one of the biggest issues
across the Northern Territory. So if you are elected as
a federal member, how do you feel that the federal
government could support the Northern Territory government on this really
serious issue.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. I've given it a lot of thought, as you
can imagine, because I've worked at the coll face of
crime since nineteen eighty six when I first moved here,
and I've seen a whole lot of programs come and go,
and over time, I guess I'm like just like a
plumber who's been a plumber for forty years, you know,
you sort of like look at things and see things
in a way that you know apprentices can't. And so
(01:30):
when I look at what's driving crime in the Northern Territory,
I see very poor federal government policy over generations, creating
a situation where there's a high proportion of the population
who are living in extreme poverty with nothing to lose
(01:52):
and very little reason to respect the white legal system.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And so through your experience, what do you reckon we
need to do differently?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
This is where this is why I'm with the Greens,
because the Greens actually have some policies that address these issues.
And there are longer term ones like you know, developing
employment and all of that sort of stuff in remote
communities and addressing the very poor educational and health outcomes,
But at what you can do really soon, And this
(02:23):
is what I'm always interested in. And it's not like
it's great to have long term goals, but people want
to know what they're going to how they're going to
deal with it like now, and one of them there
are ways you can deal with it now, and one
of those is Greens policy to increase Center Link payments.
At the moment, center Link is basically under the poverty line,
and so anybody who's on Center Link is living in poverty,
(02:47):
and poverty is the greatest driver of crime that ever
there was. Somebody once said, the law and its fairness
prosecutes rich and poor alike for begging for bread and
sleeping under bridges.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Blair in terms of obviously, you know, for some that
are living below the poverty line. That is one thing
that the Greens are looking at doing and keen to
do when it comes to cost of living across the board.
I mean, even when you look at those who are
working and who are juggling mortgages, juggling rent all that
kind of thing, what do you think could be done
(03:22):
to lower the cost of living for those in your
electorate or in your potentially in your electorate if elected.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, there are again, there are some really this is
a serious problem that's been coming for a while. The
basis of the cost of living problem is energy. Energy
has the cost of energy for every everything has tripled
in the last five seven years. It's like gas has
gone up by three hundred percent. Like that is the
(03:50):
underlying driver. Like everything costs more money because everything's built
on energy. The shops are more expensive because they've got
to ship things there. You know, planes are more expensive
is they've got to pay more for airline fuel. You know,
driving around is more expensive. Everything, everything is more expensive
because of energy. And the Greens have some really good
(04:10):
long term energy plans to move off fossil fuels and
onto onto renewables, which are the cheapest form of energy.
All the research shows that since unfortunately we lost we
lost our solar edge and it went to China because
of very because of poor investment decisions made in Australia,
(04:34):
the price of solar panels and the price that that
sort of battery storage has been going down and down
and down. Now it is the cheapest form of energy
there is now. The fossil fuel companies are hanging on
to the subsidies, and they're hanging on hard because they
know at some point in the future, some very close
point in the future, nobody's going to want their stuff.
You know, it's it's a dye it's you know, it's
(04:54):
a dying it's a dying industry. But whilst whilst they're
there and whilst they have that enormous power, they're hanging
on as hard as they can. And that's what's pushing
up energy prices and so the cost of living. That's
two components to it. There's that and there's also housing.
And housing is the reason we've got housing problems is
because the government dropped the ball about twenty years ago.
(05:15):
And like I grew up in a Housing Commission house,
I grew up in social housing and Baptist in the
sixties and at that stage the government was pumping out houses.
There are building houses for people all over the place,
but they haven't built any in any numbers for so
long that the existing housing stock is getting more and
more people squashed into it and it's degrading and the
(05:38):
price is going up and up. So that's another component
of the cost of living is housing. The rent that
people pay. It's just it's absurdly high. And there are
a number of other strategies I can talk about, but
that's they're the two reasons, and they're the two ways
that Greens would address it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But infrastructure is something that our other candidate lisese but
just raised, you know, roads and connectivity when it comes
to some of our more remote areas. What do you
think needs to happen when it comes to infrastructure and
the seat of LINGIAI.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, Like the roads down here are complete disgrace. Like
a lot of you know, even now after the rain
that we've just recently had, there are a lot of
roads going out into the communities are impassible, and so
people get stuck in town and and they're sort of
you know, they're basically homeless. There's all these people who
are sort of stuck in town, are homeless and creating
(06:32):
a sort of real drag on their relations. How you
definitely need better roads, but also we need to address
the cost of flights. Like it seems to me that
somebody in Parliament who could negotiate without all of the
sort of baggage of the major parties in relation to
quantas could sort of like play that card. Well, you know,
(06:53):
we gave you millions and millions of dollars recently during
COVID for job Keeper, and and you just turned around
and sort of like gave that away, div it in
to your shareholders, like you know, you've got to come
to the party and provide subsidized, fair, subsidized flights all
over Australia. To give up on the commercial model where yeah,
(07:16):
we'll make these cheap here because because there's lots of
lots of people going back and supports booing Melbourne and Sydney.
But we'll make these ones up up through the center,
you know, we'll make them really expensive. And that's that's
an economic model. That's a business model, but it's not
a fair model. It should be the same all over Australia.
Flights should should be subsidized so that everybody pays a
(07:37):
fair amount for the access to that national service.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Clair, we've only got about forty seconds left and I
do want to ask you, how are you going to
ensure the voices of Territorians are heard if you are
elected and if you do become the Member for LINGII.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, this this is a unique opportunity to do it.
It's unique and two levels. One because we are looking
at a hung parliament and this is a time when
independence and minor parties like the Greens will have vastly
more leverage than you have when one party has all
the cards, which is what it's been for most of
most of the history of Australia. So this is definitely
a time when the voices of territorians could definitely be
(08:18):
heard as long as as long as it was you know,
a minor party or an independent and not so. Yep,
that's my time here, That.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Is your time. Hey, very quick one. Where are your
preferences going to go?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
If you decided no, the Greens decide that, I'm pretty
sure the coalition would be very close to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
All right. Well, Blair McFarland, good to speak with you
this morning. Really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, thanks, thank you, No worries.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Thanks
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